cover image Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy

Bridget Jones: Mad about the Boy

Helen Fielding, read by Samantha Bond. Random House Audio, unabridged, 10 CDs, 11.5 hrs., $40 ISBN 978-0-8041-4876-4

In Fielding’s novel, beloved Bridget Jones is now 51 years old and a widow, raising her two young children alone after the death of husband Mark Darcy. With her signature diary entries and comical obsession with minutiae, Bridget forges ahead into unfamiliar worlds as she uses Twitter, tries to write a screenplay, and dates a sexy “toy boy” 20 years her junior. Narrator Bond is perfect as Bridget, conveying her humorously self-deprecating insecurity, her joyous highs and depressed lows, and all her inevitable comic mishaps and social awkwardness. She also slips easily into a variety of spot-on character voices, including sophisticated Talitha, supercilious Mr. Wallaker (a schoolteacher who turns out to be more than meets the eye), sexy Roxter (the aforementioned toy boy), and Mabel, Bridget’s young daughter. Bond’s brilliant narration will have listeners cheering Bridget on, and makes this audiobook a must-listen. A Knopf hardcover. (Nov.)